Ptolemy's "Geography"

The only complete English translation of Ptolemy's Geography is that by Edward Luther Stevenson, published by the New York Public Library in 1932. An expensive edition, limited to 250 copies, it was long out of print until reissued as a Dover paperback in 1991. Two generations of English-speaking readers thus know the Geography only through Stevenson's translation, which is very flawed. The most recent scholarly treatment in English of Ptolemy's cartography is a chapter by Oswald A. W. Dilke in volume 1 of the History of Cartography edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward (1987). Aware of the inadequacy of Stevenson's translation, Dilke relied on modern Greek editions and provided new English translations of quoted passages. So it is very good, indeed, to have access at last to a reliable English-language version of the principal textual parts of Ptolemy's epochal work

English language · Linguistics · Ptolemy's table of chords · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Geography and Cartography · History · Philosophy